Riza was the CEO of Sun Life Financial Philippines from August 2009 until her retirement in June 2018, after which she assumed the chairmanship of Sun Life Financial Philippine Holding Co. until she stepped down in August 2019. She was also Chairman of the Sun Life Foundation from August 2009 to August 2019. During Riza’s term as CEO, the company implemented numerous industry firsts and innovations which paved the way for its leadership in the industry, becoming the number one insurance company in 2011 to the present.

Under Riza’s leadership, Sun Life won numerous prestigious awards, including Life Insurance Company of the Year at the 19th Asia Insurance Industry Awards and 2015 Employer of the Year bestowed by the People Management Association of the Philippines (the only local life insurance company to do both)

Her own accomplishments have likewise been recognized by prestigious award-giving bodies, among which were the Asia Talent Management award at CNBC’s 2017 Asia Business Leader Awards, the 2018 Executive Champion of the Year from the Asia Insurance Review, the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Award (Financial Services, Philippines) in 2016, and the CEO Excel Award from the International Association of Business Communicators-Philippines in 2011.

Riza is an independent director of Ayala Corporation, Ayala Land, First Philippine Holdings Corporation, PHINMA Corporation, Universal Robina Corporation, East Asia Computer Center Inc., and MicroVentures Foundation. She is also a director of Sun Life Grepa Financial Inc.

She was President of the Management Association of the Philippines in 2019, and President of the Philippine Life Insurance Association in 2015. She is a Trustee of the Makati Business Club and Philippine Business for Education, among numerous other organizations.

A graduate of the University of the Philippines with a B.S. Electrical Engineering degree (cum laude), Riza has an M.S. Computer Science from The State University of New York at Albany and is a Fellow of the Life Management Institute (with distinction). In 2010, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the UP College of Engineering, she was named one of the college’s 100 Most Outstanding Alumni of the Past Century. In 2016 she was named one of the top 100 EEE graduates. In 2019 she was named PAX Awardee, the highest award conferred by St. Scholastica’s College, where she completed her elementary and high school education, on an outstanding alumna.

During her spare time, Riza runs, and is one of only a handful of Filipino Six Stars, runners who have completed all six of the World Marathon Majors (Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Berlin and Tokyo).